


Tribe Tree

by NixKat



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, Family Dynamics, Gen, Resistance, Worldbuilding, slave revolt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2020-05-16 08:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NixKat/pseuds/NixKat
Summary: A collection of Hork-Bajir focused shorts.Using similar headcanons as my other Animorphs fics.





	1. What Is

Tribe is many families all together in one tree. Elders, parents, children. What has been, what is, and what is far. 

Ket Halpak knows this well. She was one of the lucky ones, she’d been born free from cages and pool stink and fear cries. Her husband, Jara Hamee was as well. Jara’s father was Seerow Hamee. 

Seerow the Free Maker.

Seerow learned the Way of War from his father, Dak Hamee who was seer. Dak Hamee who saw it from the dust demons and the evil arn and the yeerk slavers. Her second father believed that Dak’s soul weeps among Mother Sky’s flowers because the path he saw was filled with pain for their people. If her second father-father did weep, Ket Halpak had no sympathy for his sadness. She’d heard her Jara tell the story many times; Dak was a seer yes, but he’d been a child who knew little of life before the war. Dak had never been a healer like her mother Toth Halpak or her mother-mother-mother-mother Kin Nipak and seen the terrors that plagued the tree people. Many terrors almost as bad as the dust and the cages. 

But Seerow was not bothered by the what ifs of a seer.

The yeerks took him as a child, surrounded by dust and screaming his sadness, as the story goes. But he escaped by the time he was grown. He watched. He listened. He freed others.

Jara and Ket will watch. They will listen. They will free their people.


	2. Space

“Valley is small.” Ket said thoughtfully as she wove branches. As far as they’d seen of Earth it was a very flat place. The Narrows back home were deeper by half.

Her husband looked up at her from where he was securing the floor for the house. Jara thought then looked at the surrounding trees that could pass for saplings and quarter-growns back on Father Deep. He frowned and Ket liked the way his cheeks puffed out.

“Is small,” He conceded, “Is safe.”

“Hiding maybe,” She suggested stopping her work and dropping down to him. Jara’s grip did not waver as her weight settled onto his shoulder and thigh. “Need more valley for tribe. And hiding. Always more for hiding.”

Jara thumped his tail against the trunk and hung the pot of holding resin on the scaffolding he’d already finished. He sighed, “Ket Halpak is trouble. Trouble trouble. Got sense like seer. Lead way seer-Ket.”

She snorted in laughter and they locked headblades before racing each other to the edge of their valley and into the next.


	3. The Raid

Her Jara Hamee is smart and handsome and strong and good and handy. He was probably the best storyteller she’d ever heard. Ket Halpak loved him very much. And really there very were few of their people on this world who would probably make a better leader, regardless of his tendency to be too cautious.

But she was a much better fighter. A better sneaker as well. And that was why she was in charge of the raid.

She’d spent weeks scouting out yeerk bases. Half from memory and half from guessing based on what the two of them knew the yeerks needed. Some matching patterns that the adults discussed back when they young enough to cling to their mother’s backs. 

Figuring out the best paths through these miniature forests was the fun part. As she flew she learned more about the thick Earth air and which branches could hold their weight. And which could hold thrice that which was a bit more important. How many times the alien trees could take hits at different angles before they broke or fell? She learned this. And hiding places were found. She left words on the important trees in Galard and numbers. Clawed phrases of hope for treefolk being ridden by yeerks into the bark. Deep in Mother Sky there was another tribe of free people who’d been sending messages out into the deep in the language singing trees. It took Jara many long days to work some borrowed radios to be able to listen in.

They borrowed many human things and stole some others. There were plenty of ground houses in less than a day’s travel and plenty of humans camping in the woods at any given time. Only things they’d seen used by the humans and yeerks in humans at the pools and in the ships. Metal tools, some electronics, survival gear, and a few weapons. Most valuable were things like sticky tape and sheep wool and dry straw. It was warm now, but this was an alien world who knew what the seasons were like.

The night of the raid was dark. If not for the notes etched into the path the two of them would be hopelessly lost. No moon and no electric lights. They flew as swiftly as birds, touching down only long enough to read the shapes of words with the scales. At the first spotted light they paused and nestled into the foliage, their spotted skins would hide them well. With a thwick of her tail against bark Jara took to the north.

And then Ket waited.

Soon enough the lights of yeerk nursery went out and like lightning she crossed the last band of trees. Talons on the ground she landed at the entrance of a Taxxon tunnel and slipped into it, blades folded close. Ket did not like crawling but it was useful and she thanked the people of the low tribes for teaching it. The one taxxon she encountered was not at the moment ridden by a yeerk as far as she could smell, and it was young enough that she could disarm it with a single hand. 

_“Little one,”_ She said in Tax, _“Fight this day and die. Call warning and many die, maybe even you. Is understanding?”_

The taxxon’s claws scrambled nervously and it deflated a bit. She released its face.

_“Apologies! Apologies!”_ It said shrinking back. _“This one grovels! This one submits!”_

_“Good.”_ She huffed. _“Stay out of way.”_

Ket hesitated at the exit just listening. There was a ruckus, all folks moving to where Jara was causing trouble on the other side of the compound. When she no one else near she bolted out the tunnel for the nearest door. The walls of the hall were close enough that she could scuffle up above the heads of any passing below without sinking her claws into the walls and making more noise. Then she followed her ears to find her target.

The yeerk standing guard was easy to defeat. She grabbed its human head with one of her feet and yanked it up faster than it could react. Then she snatched away its dracon beam and punched it in the chest hard enough for it to lose consciousness. With some careful maneuvering, she took a roll of sticky tape from one headblades and secured it to the wall. Then she dropped to the floor and with a good solid kick, she busted down the door.

If she and Jara had not escaped they would have been sent to this place. The nursery was for breeding more hosts for yeerks. When yeerks mate they fuse and die as they spawn grubs like glima fish. So most yeerks are not interested in forcing their hosts to mate. In fact, Ket often tormented her yeerk with memories of her matings with Jara. 

It disgusted the yeerk greatly.

And also yeerks were not good at being dulas nor did they enjoy the downsides of pregnancy; the aches, the pains, the movement deep inside and the cravings. So the yeerks claimed that letting the hork-bajir have a taste of freedom was a good incentive for making of more hosts. To her knowledge, they were trying something similar for taxxons because importing ones from Hiveholm was costing them. But the yeerks could not meet the taxxon needs for baby making just like they could not figure out how to fix their hunger.

The room was the bare minimum. Bland and brutal metal. Several vertical climbing spaces and nooks like those of trees for climbing and balance all over. Some bare platforms for sleeping. Enough space to move and stay active to keep the baby healthy and give birth. It was currently occupied by a handful of females, a pretty male, and across the room may be a good solid leap away was a human body and another female guarding the other door. She tensed ready to spring as the yeerk-in-human reached for its weapon when the other female slammed her tail into it. Then the male threw a bucket at the yeerk’s stolen head as it tried to get back up and knocked it out.

“Visser 3 says Ket Halpak dead.” The guard female said in folk speak. Ket recognized the voice as Grath Sha. A nearly grown child who was one of the ‘voluntaries’, hosts that made deals with yeerks to avoid the cages. Grath who’d come from the free space tribe by way of the nahara who were allies of the yeerks. The nahara fang she wore around her neck glinted in the light of the yeerk’s flashlight and confirmed this.

Ket Halpak shrugged her blades. “Visser 3 should dig deeper graves.”

The grown females descended from the fake trees and watched tensely. Their blades quivering in agitation. Grath Sha was a very good fighter, she learned from the nahara and the nahara have clashed with the dust demons and won dodging deadly lightning-quick tail strikes. But Ket Halpak had more experience and the others would fight on her side if it came to it for their freedom. Grath Sha flattened her blades and bowed.

“Then we be ghosts soon too.”

They left the same way Ket had come in. Her people were quick learners. As they exited the tunnel the young taxxon followed them out. It was hesitant and still groveling so they did not attack it. No one much wanted to be killing children if it could be helped.

_“May this one go with too?”_ It whispered. _“This one is useful to the hive if wanted.”_

They all looked to Ket for her decision. Well Deep, she and Jara came to free people. Taxxons are different people but they are people. They don’t suffer the same as her people but they suffer.

In Tax she said, _“Little one will not bite or betray. No returning to yeerk hive.”_

_“This one flees a rotten hive that has bitten its own and refuses reason,”_ The taxxon swore. _“To sanctuary does this one’s life and teeth belong.”_

_ “Very well. We open hive to you.” _

Grath Sha volunteered to carry the taxxon. They knew each other, not friends but friendly. 

Ket led the way and the pretty male made the tail of the line. It was slow going, most of the group were not used to the pace and needed to stop frequently to catch their breath. Twice they had to hide from loud ships with searching lights. Eventually, their path lined up with her Jara Hamee. He’d been spotted and chased but he beat his chasers. And using sticky tape tied one, a big male hork-bajir, up and carried him away with him.

Everyone was brought to one of the minor valleys that Jara and Ket discovered together. In it trees packed tightly together and the walls were steeper but it was good enough for hiding. Later when everyone could be trusted and Ket became very fat with child they would all move to the morphers’ valley where it was safer.

Till then they came to know each other. The pretty male was Kit Naab who knew medicine. Then there was Tak Ran, who’s husband and sister were killed by the morphers and who’s grudge did not lessen after meeting them. Loro Lok who was Kit Naab’s wife and was friendly and made good candies from honey and worms that Ket craved as she got heavier. Sil Renya who thought that Ket’s Jara was nicer looking than Kit and asked to borrow him because she still wanted a child. And Mern Tron who was good at being sneaky and who figured out that they could use eggs to improve the poor bark of Earth trees. The taxxon’s call-name was Sssirin and Sssirin liked to dig and could help build with all of his many claws. Three days after the rescue they learned that the big male Jara caught was named Aad Wanlo and he was a good fighter and thinker.

 

And all of them became tribe.


	4. Welcome! Welcome!

Ket huffed, resting her chin on her elbow in frustration. One wrist blade sunk deep in the trunk as an anchor and her other arm wrapped around the thick branch claws secured into the bark. Another close branch pressed against her shoulder but she didn’t want to cut it with her knee blade. Because this was the nook that she decided months ago that she was going to give birth in. She just never considered just how big she would get.

Her Jara landed higher in the tree with a water gourd tied to his tail. A while ago everyone in the tribe decided that it would be much faster for volunteers to bring her water than for her to scoot down a tree and waddle to the river. They even proved it by having the young taxxon, Sssirin, race her when she tried to be stubborn. For its part in wounding her pride, Sssirin and Jara brought her a basket full of flower candy stuffed eggs that she’d developed a taste for. Still, she didn’t like that smug self-satisfied smile on her husband’s face.

“This Jara Hamee fault.” She hissed.

He had the nerve to laugh at her. “Make baby need mother and father.”

Ket snorted at him and accepted the water. After slaking her thirst she glared at the branches in thought.

“Does Ket Halpak need help?”

“... Ket Halpak needs help.”

With her husband’s assistance, mostly making himself another foothold so that she could push away from the tree and get her belly over the branches, she was able to nestle into her nook. Soon, Kit Naab came to check on her and not long after the rest of the to-be mothers and fathers followed. Most had never seen a birth so it was a good time for learning.

Ket Halpak had listened to a few humans talk about birth back when they were in cages. Just to have something to talk about and move thoughts away from bad things. Too much bad in thoughts hurts the body even kills sometimes. Human mothers say: birth is pain and pushing and breathing deep for hours, maybe days. Ket Halpak and the other females felt sorry for them.

For Ket birth went like this: something inside her belly flippity flopped and her muscles all of a sudden relaxed. If not for her anchors, wrist and spur blades sunk deep, she’d have fallen. Even her neck went slack and her chin dropped to the bottom of her chest. Then the pressure inside her released like a ripe seed pod and her guts fell out.

Her guts did not really fall out.

Her Jara Hamee was doing his part in the birth as a father, he hung under her perpendicular to the tree to catch. In his outstretched claws was their egg all wet and shiny and see through. The baby was a female from the two tiny nubs on her head and she was still very flippy floppy struggling to get free. Jara’s face was terrified and his eyes shiny with joy. Very carefully his claws pierced and pulled off the thin shell.

Regaining her strength she started to sing, “Hello! Toby Hamee! Hello!”

Her husband sang, “Welcome! Toby Hamee! Welcome!”

Their audience sang, “Good to meet Toby Hamee! Good, good!”

Toby Hamee squeaked.


	5. Book 23-- The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hork centric rewrite of book 23. Or Bek gets lost and Toby and friends need to rescue him.

Toby Hamee is a ‘seer’, literally: the one who sees far into what is and what may be. One thing she likes about the language of her people is the ability to say a lot using very little breath. Something that she reasoned was an adaption to her ancestors living in high-density groups and the necessity to communicate ideas efficiently as they needed to use the rest of the oxygen in their lungs to power their muscles to flee from the monsters from the deep. Quirks of the language that don’t translate well and actively fight with the standards of grammar in Galard and English.

This was why the humans and the yeerks looked down their beaks at her people. They took it as a sign that they were unintelligent and of less worth. Such strange things aliens placed value on as intelligent. Yet how many languages did the average human speak? The average yeerk? She knew almost as many languages as fingers she possessed: Tree of course and then Galard from her parents and tribemates. The basics of English from them as well polished to fluency from watching television. Conversational Tax and claw-sign from teacher Sssirin. Enough Spanish from Dora la exploradora and Telemundo that she was confident enough to use. Naharan dialect skikar and desbadeen balong from teacher Grath Sha. Were there humans that knew as many different languages? Maybe, but they were likely rare meanwhile pretty much every hork-bajir in the tribe knew just as many even if they skipped the redundant grammar rules.

It understandably made her very angry along with many other things.

Unfortunately, that same anger is what made the council uncertain of her ability to lead.

Which was why after the excitement of her first trial run of leadership had worn off, she was secretly listening to their meeting. Not spying, listening.

The meeting was being held in the big community lodge, a large circular platform built around the upper third of four huge pines. Support beams of living oak formed a loose cage connecting to a ring of eight trees outside of the first circle supported the weight of the platform. The whole thing was roofed and camouflaged from above by a woven mat of more living branches and vines. According to her father, Jara Hamee, this was the kind of structure that new tribes built when they settled into a valley. Over time (and with due diligence) as the trees grow, they would merge together into a proper Tribe tree with the expanded hall as the main community center. Toby had no idea if they could grow these alien trees into such a structure or even if they would have that much time on this world. But her father insisted that they should practice their cultural skills if only to keep them fresh in the mind. And besides, getting everyone to work on a project together was good for building bonds especially when they were effectively the tribal equivalent of a chop-toss salad.

And because she’d been involved in the building process (even if all she did was pass things to her dad as she clung to his back) she knew the best place to eavesdrop that wasn’t in the latrine. Been there, done that, learned from it. Or the eaves either for that matter.

Toby was thankful that she hadn’t yet hit her next growth spurt when she nestled into the nice little crook in the support cage next to the gap in the floorboards under the south room. As it was she could just barely fit in the cavity formed by the moss and wood. Her tail had to dangle out and she had to sit with her legs crossed to avoid jabbing her belly with her knee blades. If she stayed very still the only other people who’d notice her would also be eavesdroppers and they couldn’t snitch without snitching on themselves as well.

_ “...needs only a z-space transponder.” _

“Jara Hamee know part. Cannon have?”

_ “This one knows not. A likely eventuality.” _

“Ket Halpak say let yeerk work more. Get radio part. Get hork-bajir. Make big boom.”

“Aad Wanlo agree with Ket Halpak.”

“Aad Wanlo, Ket Halpak want know how Toby Hamee do?”

“Aad Wanlo think--”

_ <Toby Hamee is spying!> _

The sudden shout combined with the knowledge that she was doing something that she shouldn’t activated Toby Hamee’s flight reflex and she’d lept twenty feet away from her perch before her mind clamped down on her instincts. Looking around she spotted her spooker, Bek, hanging by his tail and snickering at her. Frowning she stuck out her tongue at him and shouted  _ SHORT _ in her head, knowing that he was listening.   


Bek, in turn, projected an image of her own bugged out fear face back at her with a smirk.

Then she noticed her dad, her mom, and about half of the other people at the meeting sticking their heads out of the door of the south room. Looking directly at her. Toby could feel her head blades flush dark. Quickly she pretended to be interested in picking pine cones. One by one the adults went back to their meeting, Jara being the last and still most suspicious of her.

She did not need to move her head to see Bek thump against the tree a tail length above her. He climbed down to her level face first, his bloodshot black eyes gleaming with mirth. < _ Toby Hamee is blushing. _ >

When he opened his beak to laugh she shoved a pinecone in his mouth. This did not phase Bek who thoughtfully crunched and swallowed the treat. Toby dropped down the length of the tree to the ground and headed for the river. This kept Bek too busy trying to keep up with her to send his thoughts, his short legs meant he had to hop twice as much to match her pace.

By the lake was one of the new recruits and one of Toby’s few new friends, Fal Tagut, experimenting with his bows. Fal’s mother-mother lived in a very steep valley practically on the other side of the world from Toby’s own ancestors. In that narrow valley, a seer spent her life inventing what humans would call archery. Not as a weapon or hunting tool, this was back before Dak shared the discovery of violence, but as a way to get ripe gooba fruit from the trees that were too close to the deep to forage under. These bows and arrows that Fal was making now would be weapons to use against the yeerks because the tribe needed long-distance weapons that didn’t need to be charged with nuclear power like their stolen dracon beams.

Fal Tagut did not stop his carving of arrows from leftover building planks as Toby and Bek approached. He did turn so as to see them with his good eye. The other eye having been put out by her namesake, a human named Tobias who happened to have the body of a bird and was also fighting in the battle against the yeerk slavers.

“Hello, Fal Tagut. How is?”

“Why Toby Hamee dark?”   
  
< _ Toby Hamee get caught spying. _ >

She snorted at Bek and flicked his stubby horns that would grow properly if he stopped picking at them. “Bek got Toby Hamee caught!”

To Toby’s annoyance, Fal started laughing at her too. He said smiling, “Toby Hamee need play more hiding/seeking.”

She huffed and gestured at the entirety of Bek’s currently three-foot-tall being, “Bek hears thoughts! How Toby Hamee hide from?!”

Fal and Bek glanced at each other no doubt sharing some joke between them and then turned back to her. 

“Easy.” Fal Tagut said.

< _ Hide thoughts. _ > Bek finished.

Toby Hamee rolled her eyes at them in the human expression of exasperation that was quickly picking up among both free and enslaved hork-bajir on Father Earth.  

Some days she really hated the concept of friendship. Other days she was glad that there were people in the valley who treated her as a peer worthy of ridicule and not just as a kid or as a seer with a great responsibility. And after a while, her embarrassment cooled off as she and Bek helped Fal craft and test different designs of bows and arrows. It was near sundown when her mother found her and both chided her for spying on their meeting and congratulated her on passing Aad Wanlo’s assessment. She would be allowed to lead solo in the next mission.

Toby Hamee celebrated this with a maple syrup mead toast to all of her teachers and her friends and everyone else she learned from.

 

////

 

Fal Tagut was the first to notice that Bek is missing.

He’d woken in the middle of the night with the screams from the Yeerk Pool cavern in his head. Brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and cousins all terror and anger. Sadness and calls for vengeance ringing for a forever in his ears. He could still feel something slithering into his ear. His body would not respond. It scared him. His heart pounded in his chest and slowly he was able to make his body be awake as well.

Still, Fal Tagut was scared.

His mother was not here. His father not here. No mother-brothers. No mother-sisters. No father-brothers. No father-sisters. No cousins. None of the people he’d shared the cages with. Fal Tagut cried from loneliness.

After a bit, he leaped from his perch and sought out his friends.

Bek was not in his favorite tree. Curiosity beat out loneliness in Fal’s head. He was somewhat aware that Bek did not tend to sleep at night. When Bek did sleep he liked to sleep in the mornings far away from everyone in this hollow in this exact big oak. 

What did Bek do at night? Fal Tagut had no answer.

Toby Hamee slept closer to where Fal Tagut did than Bek’s tree. But it was easier to go from start to far away to back to near than start to near to far. At least it was as far as Fal was concerned. Toby and her parents had a house in the second-best place in the Ellimist valley (the best place is where the community hall is). There were several houses in the valley, most clustered together in the same area. Jara’s house was the biggest of these and the door faced east to catch sunlight in the morning.

If Bek was here, Bek would whisper to Toby to let her know they were there. So Fal hesitated at the door with indecision. He did not want to wake Toby’s parents.

“Hear you. Smell you. Who is?” Jara Hamee’s voice was quiet. Fal’s horns flushed dark in embarrassment at his lack of stealth.

“Am Fal Tagut.” Fal Tagut answered in a matching whisper.

“Is time for sleep, Fal tagut.”

“Yes.”

A silence stretched out long enough that Fal’s crop started to feel slippery.

“Jara Hamee?”

“Yes, Fal Tagut?”

“Bek is not in tree.”

“Bek wanders when should be sleeping. Will look for when is bright.”

“Ok.”

In the darkness, Fal heard someone shifting on a bed. And then one person’s claws on floorboards. The sound of swallowing.

“Jara Hamee?”

“Yes, Fal Tagut?”

“Fal Tagut has sleep demons. Fal Tagut is alone.”

“Jara Hamee has big house and big bed. Fal Tagut is not alone.”

 

/////

 

Bek is lost.

Bek is not surprised by that. He almost never left the Ellimist valley alone. His sense of direction is bad, the rock in his head that should know where North is doesn’t work at all. It was too dark to see clearly and if not for the round moon he would see nothing at all. Bek did not sleep good around other people, especially sleeping ones.Their dreams were loud and kept him awake. Usually, he ended up falling asleep around sunup when everyone else was waking. 

When Bek couldn’t sleep he went jumping. 

Unfortunately, there were yeerks tied up to die at his favorite place to jump. He did not want to listen to their screaming and feel their fear and hate or the suffering of the yeerks’ prisoners. So he went west to one of the smaller valleys. Except, he miss counted a leap and lost track of Ket Halpak’s directions.   

Jara Hamee tells everyone,  _ if not know where is make mark as go. If find mark, then has been before. _ So Bek made nicks in the bark of the trees as he passed by them. When Bek ran into his marks again, he made new ones and went in a different direction.

When the earth bit him in the foot, causing him to trip and scream, Bek decided that he was going to follow Ket Halpak’s advice.  _ The lost should stay put _ . As he didn’t know why the ground was biting him, he decided to stay put. Maybe it would get tired of biting and let go? It didn’t seem to be trying to eat him like that bear did.

By morning his wounds were dry and didn’t hurt. He could see what was holding him better, some metal mouth on a chain nailed into the ground. It would be pretty easy to free himself if not for the humans rolling up in their car-thing. 

Very loud humans.

Only humans, no yeerks. Bek was good at hearing thoughts and people held hostage by yeerks were very easy for him to tell. The yeerks felt one way and the captives always another. But just because they were not controlled by yeerks did not mean they weren’t scary. Especially not with those weapons pointed at him. Bek was very careful. He’d seen the kinds of wounds guns made, he did not want to be shot.

So he complied when they brought out the cage.

 

////

 

Toby would be much much more excited about her first real solo leadership job if the mission wasn’t searching for her missing friend. As it was she put on a brave face and got together a search party. Out of a tribe of twenty-three hork-bajir, nine taxxons, and four humans she had nine of her people, a third of the taxxons, and half of the humans to work with. That meant making about three teams with one taxxon each to track Bek’s scent. The one team without humans could cover a lot more ground especially if she assigned them the smallest of the taxxons. Every team member got a talkie and one map and at least one map reader to a team.

She felt confident about the mission.

That confidence shrunk by the end of that day.  It shrank some more at the end of the second day. It withered entirely on the morning of the third day when the taxxon of team two called in.

_ [“Find blood of the one who is Bek,”] _ Ssskartaa’s voice clicked calmly over the walkie talkie.  _ [“Days old. Not enough for hork-bajir death. No panic in the dirt, one who is Bek was not scared. In dirt is human shoe prints, smell of gasoline, car prints. Car was heavier leaving than coming.”] _

_ “Did the humans take the one who is Bek?” _

_ [“It is strongly possible.”] _

Toby radioed everyone to call off the search and regroup back in the Ellimist valley. She was very very tired and it was up to her to come up with the plan moving forward.

How exactly would they go about it? This wasn’t a mall raid, the humans couldn’t just drive them in the vans to a building in the middle of the night. They had no leads whatsoever about where to start looking. Frankly, Bek could be on the other side of the continent by now. They needed cloaking tech! They needed morphing tech! They needed a miracle!

Toby felt a heavy hand land on her shoulder. Her father bumped his horns against hers. 

“Breathe deep.” Jara said calmly.

She did. Inhaling to the bottom of her lungs and after a few seconds, letting that air back out.

“Is good?” 

“Is good.” She replied. “Toby Hamee got this.”

And then the “Goooaaahahahah” of the suspicious bird alarm call rang out over the valley. The taxxons vanished into the earth and the humans put on their masks and moved under tree cover. All of the hork-bajir aside from the lookouts filled out into the clearing to greet their visitor.

The timing of it niggled under Toby’s scales, what was the last time any of the morphers visited? Had to be almost a year ago when she’d just started hopping around on her own. The timing was suspiciously good for the current crisis, still she put on a pleasant face for Tobias as he circled on raggedy brown wings.

“Hello, friend Tobias!” Her father shouted at the human trapped in the shape of a bird.

“Good seeing you!” Her mother said as Tobias perched on an overhanging tree branch not more than a ska from where human Darnell was hiding. Ket was practically puffing with pride at how well her hiding lessons were working.

“Your timing couldn’t be better Tobias.” Toby said formally. The entire mood of clearing shifted. Yes, there was still work that needed to be done. Tobias himself seemed to deflate as well.

_ <What am I in time for?> _

“One of our young males, Bek, went missing a few days ago. We have reason to believe that he was captured by humans while wandering outside of the valley.” Toby said. “We could use some help in finding him.”

_< How do you know that? You’ve left the valley looking for him?>_ Tobias’ thought voice was surprisingly demanding.

“Yes?” Confusion at the odd question was evident on her father’s face. “Search? Look and look and look.”

“Cry, ‘Bek! Bek!’” Grath Sha added sarcastically. Toby remembered that the teenage hork-bajir once told her to never trust a human that asked very obvious questions. Grath has said something along the lines of,  _ either they think you’re dumb or they’re terrible listeners _ .

“Find footprint. Find carprint. Find smell.” Her mother, Ket, continued.

“Bek is not in the valley,” Toby repeated incase the human was still confused. “We looked for him. We found his trail. We know that he was captured and taken elsewhere by humans.”

Tobias then said several words that could be nothing else but curses. Several they knew from the cages (or taught by those who’d been in the cages to those who’d not) or from the television movies that only came on late at night. There were a few new ones in there that caught their curiosity but Tobias didn’t want to explain them.

_ <How long has he been gone?> _

“About three days,” Toby replied.

_ <Oh, man. I have to get back to the others. We'll start a search. But I don't think our chances are very good.> _ Then the bird-shaped human stopped still,  _ <Do you think Bek could lead people back here? Would he be able to find his way back? The Ellimist has laid some kind of weird spell on this place.> _

“Bek is not good with directions. He’d return to the woods if he were able and if he did we would be able to find him,” Toby said. “But he would have very little reason to lead others here.”

_ <I mean if he got made into a Controller, could he be used to find the valley?> _

“I highly doubt that the yeerks could get one of their inside him, let alone control him.”

_ <What?> _

“Bek is different. In head.” Jara said sagely. “Not seer, but strange.”

_ <Sure,> _ Tobias sighed as he took off.  _ <I’ll tell Jake and the others. To think I came here to get away from my problems...> _

The tribe waved goodbye as he flew away.

 

/////

 

Bek did not like this place. The wood of the building was clearly rotting. There was dirt and grime building up in the corners and crevices. Terrible smells. All around many animals. And all around was the feeling of sadness. Scribbling thoughts of creatures so bored they were rotting inside. Dripping feelings of lasting pains. Except for the humans that came and went, excited and frightened and happy.

He did not like this cage. There were no perches and the humans hit his fingers and toes when he tried to hang from the top. The dirty dry grass on the floor was too thin to be a good bed. Standing on it long made his joints hurt. The metal bowl of water he had to drink from was slimy. Gross. Looking around the animals in the other cages were in the same situation.

Bek was angry.

He was not big enough or strong enough to cut the metal bars of the cages. And he did not know what to do with the animals but he could tell Toby and their humans who would know more. And he could listen to the lock on his cage, there were lots of small parts he could not see. The humans opened and closed the door after sticking in a small metal twig. The twig made the little parts move. He could make the little parts move by thinking about it. But it was not easy, a puzzle! He needed to move them in the right order!

Days passed. 

The humans figured out that he did not eat meat. Bek ate their bad bread crumbles because he was hungry. Bread made of grass and seed, yuck! Bek ate to stay strong. He ate, he slept, he tinkered with tiny metal things, and he watched.

A lesson from the Storyteller,  _ Hruthin, yeerk, human. Similar. All think people who do not speak same or look same is stupid. Very silly. Tell secrets. Pay no attention. Is useful, no? _

Bek paid very close attention to the yeerk talking to the human who owned the building. Something was wrong with the yeerk’s host. There was no human thought in the human body. 

Strange. 

The yeerk was thinking,  _ yes tonight we will take this hork-bajir and make him bait for the tribe _ . The human was thinking, _ this strange one with bring me many materials _ . And further away, out of sight but not range of his thoughts or hearing were people spying.

 

////

 

The Tribe’s humans had gone out looking for Bek and came back with pulp leaves dyed with bad-smelling colors. Fal Tagut was told that the scribbles on the ‘paper’ said where to find his friend Bek. Fal believe them. 

His other friend Toby decided that they would not wait for the Animorph humans to find Bek. She and he and humans Darnell and Jade would go rescue Bek themselves. With them, they took a few dracon beams and left in the van-type car. The others wished them luck and safety and they gave wishes in return, Ket Halpak and Jara Hamee were leading an attack on the hidden yeerk cannon at nightfall.

Fal Tagut did not like riding in the van. When the van was moving it felt like he was trapped at the top of a leap with the earth below pulling on his insides. Except instead of below the earth pulled him forward, back, side to side. He spent most of the trip trying not to vomit up the good bread that Loro Lok had made for them.

It took some time to get to the place where Bek was. The sun went from four hands until dark to settled under the earth by the time they arrived. There were already sounds of fighting and big animals in one of the buildings.

Toby Hamee said, “Darnell, your our driver. Keep the motor running. Fal Tagut! Jade! Give me cover fire. I’m going to get Bek.”

Toby burst from the back of the van like a seed from an exploding pod. Windows down, he and Jade used stunning dracon shots to clear her path as she flowed like water across the battlefield. Darnell kept pace with her, maneuvering the van around other cars and downed bodies. 

Toby leaped onto the building and rounded to the other side. They rounded through the car lot to see Bek! And some strange many-legged creature and a wounded Ket Halpak. Fal Tagut was confused for a bit until he remembered that some of the Animorphs humans had shapes of Ket Halpak and Jara Hamee from when they helped them flee from the yeerks. From the booming voice in his head, Fal guessed that the strange monster was Visser Three. 

None of this stumbled Toby as she dropped from the roof, cutting off the Visser’s muzzle in the process. She turned on the spot and cut across the monster’s throat with an elbow blade and chopped the legs from one side of the Visser’s body causing it the flop to the ground. From there she lept for Bek and Fal shot the yeerk-in-human that tried to take aim at her back.

With a mighty triumphant honk, Toby bounded for the van with Bek clinging to her back. The van swung around open back to the fight as the two tumbled in. Using his feet he helped Toby close the van doors.

The ride back was three times as long to avoid leading anyone back to the valley and twice as bouncy with a shot out tire from the fight.

 

////

 

Toby Hamee did not relax until she set foot back into the Ellimist valley.

Her plans worked. Her friends were safe. She faced Visser Three in morph in battle and lived to tell of it.

And tell she did.  In the light of the bonfire surrounded by her friends and family and tribe. Everyone that had gone out that day taking turns to tell their personal stories about their missions. She spoke of Visser Three’s fear and surprise when she cut into their host’s morphed flesh. Bek talked about his captivity and the minds of the humans and yeerks he encountered. Her mother pantomimed the size and beauty of the yeerk cannon and base exploding. And her father outdid them all with a funny story about how he got the parts for his deep-space radio that involved weaponizing a bunch of bananas of all things.

Eventually, the fire died down and exhaustion snaked into everyone and the party ended. Folks said their goodnights and left for their homes to rest and recover. Bek, of course, stayed the night at her house. And so did Fal Tagut.

The peace of the next morning’s breakfast was broken by the ‘many odd birds’ alarm call.

No one actually dropped what they were doing per se, yesterday had been a long day and people wanted to eat their breakfasts. Her father, in particular, was busy tinkering with the radio at the table. The metaphorical cat was already out of the bag about their human tribemates, who only put on their masks as they continued eating their cooked eggs and soft bread. And the taxxons had discussed it the other night that they might as well reveal themselves before some accident happened and the Animorphs attacked them as enemies. Besides, if she left her oak and maple porridge at the table Bek would absolutely steal it.

Tobias arrived first fluttering around overhead before landing in a nearby tree. The hruthin following soon after on swift legs. And then came the humans with the taller ones easily outpacing the shorter ones.

“Ok, so that was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” Rachel said with excitement. She brushed her long yellow mane out of her face and her eyes seemed to be sparkling.    
  
“Where did you guys get a car!” Marco puffed breathlessly. Then his eyes wandered warily to the taxxons who waved greetings with a few of their forelimbs. 

“You do know there’s cars everywhere in the city right?” Darnell responded. 

Cassie gave him a very long and strange look that Toby did not yet know how to decipher, “You didn’t… steal that van did you?”

“Of course not,” Darnell lied through his teeth with notes of sarcasm, “My uncle Reese let me borrow it.”

“Didn’t know you guys had so many other friends,” Jake said. His mouth a stern frown. “Seems like you didn’t need our help at all.”

“By luck, our own investigation turned up the location of Bek’s imprisonment. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a way to contact you to alert you of recent developments.”

That seemed to placate the Animorphs. And frankly there was no way that Toby was going to tell them about the walkie talkies and the radio project, her parents hadn’t and the humans didn’t ask. The andalite noticed that Jara was building something but didn’t seem fit to ask what. They left soon after anyway, to some other mission and the tribe wished them luck. 

The rest of the day went as planned. 

Cooks cooked. The doctor made his rounds and taught his students. Parents cared for their children. Workers put their blades to use on building new houses. Everyone keeping busy while waiting for the main show.

Her father finished the deep space radio not one hand from sundown and she and a decent chunk of the adults and taxxons went to another valley (specifically chosen for the caves and signal strength with the regular radios) to use it try to contact other rebel groups out in space. It was a funny sight, chitin and scales effectively crammed together as everyone crowded to watch Jara Hamee hunched over a tiny desk. Everyone waiting with bated breath while he switched stations as he played -here-happy-whole- dozens of times on a small wooden hand drum.

 

-here-happy-whole-

 

-here-happy-whole-

 

-here-happy-whole-

 

-here-happy-whole-

 

-here-happy-whole-

 

-here-hap- _ [-heard-received-welcome-freedom-comrades-] _


	6. Taxxon!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A taxxon centered perspective, specificly of my oc Sssirin.

Sssirin had not been present for the birth of Toby Hamee or for the feast afterward. It was not that they hadn’t been invited, they were a member of the hive, [tribe] as the hork-bajir called it and free to participate in whatever ceremonies they felt like participating in. But they are not mentally hork-bajir, it was difficult to be excited about individual babies. Sssirin’s people laid eggs by the thousands; granted only a few hundred ever hatched at any given time and even fewer made it to adulthood. If the infant even lived that long, however long that actually is for hork-bajir, then Sssririn would be excited.

As it was, natural instinct dictated that grubs meant that the hive needs more food. 

Hork-bajir are herbivores. A wild concept really. Sssirin hatched in the desert, most of the hives they knew were from the desert or the mountains. Only once a year after the rains were there any appreciable amount of vegetation at all to lure the herds near. Herds that lived perpetually on the move to follow the rains as to not starve. The idea that there were places in the universe with so much plant life that _people_ could adapt to eating only that was mind-blowing. That this exceptionally verdant planet called Earth was so below the standards of the hork-bajir that they called trees thicker around than Sssirin themself, _saplings_ was staggering. 

As it was, they did not strip bark from the trees as they foraged. Not that they were incapable of doing so, quite the contrary as their teeth could tunnel through solid stone and they’d yet to meet a tree that tough. Sssirin only refrained because they were still learning the intricacies of bark harvesting. For her friendly demeanor, Loro Lok was a stern teacher when it came to the health of the trees, one bad cut could lead to the whole organism dying or getting infected and spreading sickness to the surrounding vegetation.

A stressful thought.

That’s why they were delicately snipping green twigs from the ends of bushes and plucking ripe little fruits that their hork-bajir hive mates would find edible. Really only going after things that had similar chemical flavor-scents to foods that Sssirin already knew that hork-bajir eat. No need to accidentally poison anyone. Sssirin sorted all gathered material into baskets of silk and grass attached to their rump to keep their claws free.

The pace of their work was only hampered by the need to indulge in their appetite: a few bites of dirt here, a songbird snatched out of the sky there. Sssirin, of course, knew the cause of the bottomless hunger of their people that constantly needled the mind and made taxxons crave the taste of the flesh of their own people. (More than usual that is. There are plenty of perfectly acceptable reasons to eat taxxon flesh.) The hunger of malnutrition. That no matter how much flesh you filled your belly with, it was never enough, that what you needed was inside the bodies of your comrades. A chemical generally provided by the living hives but due to drought and famine lead their people to abandon the hives for the marginal safety of the surface and then the aliens who promised much and did not deliver.

But something close by smelled like hive fruit. Sssirin increased the airflow through their spiracles and... yes! Nearby was some hive fruit! Somehow on this alien world!? Routing air intake through their mouth cavity they are able to track down the delicious smelling… fungus? It looked enough like a fungus to Sssirin, it had a main body of white strands and a spore-producing fruiting body. Maybe fungi were one of those things that just looked the same everywhere? 

Burning need caused Sssirin to voraciously consume the pale pink-yellow fungi and some of the bark of the tree it was attached to and doing the same with the next shelf of the stuff that they found. Filled with shame, Sssirin carefully felled the two trees so that the surrounding vegetation wouldn’t get sick. And then for good measure, they filled the rest of their stomachs with ground bark and leaves. Nutritionally doing nothing for them but providing fiber.

Afterward, they tracked down the locations of more of the fruit smelling fungus and with great care harvested and wrapped some bundles of it in silk. Someone else in the hive might know more about it given that it was growing on a tree, and even if they didn’t the hork-bajir would probably figure out a good method for cultivating it. With their hindquarters weighed down with everything they collected, fungus fruit and bush fruits and twigs and all, Sssirin marched their way back to camp.

Turns out that the hork-bajir did know how to farm tree fungus. In fact, the fungus that Sssirin found was very similar to the ‘Cook it or die’ edible tree symbiote that they used in their traditional ‘Cold-Hot-Thick’ stew, which Sssirin knew were not direct translations of the hork-bajir language. The mixed low-frequency throat sounds were not something that the taxxon could hope to replicate with their own mouthparts and spiracles. Sssirin’s teachers added the art of cultivating fungi to their lesson plans.

Days later of consuming the fungus fruit regularly (small pieces remember, only small pieces) Sssirin noted a few immediate improvements to their general constitution like increased hemolymph flow and a drastic reduction in appetite. And after their molt, they felt like the healthiest taxxon outside of Hiveholm. They scuttled confidently up trees without the fear that falling was an absolute death sentence and proposed their plan to recruit more taxxons at the next big meeting.

 

////

 

Hearts pounding, heavy breathing, a gentle breeze flowing downhill. Sssirin knew all these things only increased the amount of their personal scent in the air. Still, Sssirin waited until they could see the starlight glinting off the teeth of the taxxon-Controllers before running. 

 _...4-5-6-GO!!_ Sssirin lept sideways onto the trees lining the left side of the path. Their toes had hardly touched the bark before they were full out sprinting like their life depended on it. And it did. Not just because this was a raid and as a rebel the yeerks would very likely want them and their comrades dead. But also because they knew that they smelled absolutely, mouth-wateringly delicious from the tasty nutritious fungus fruit cakes webbed to their rump. And the fact that yeerks worked starvation shifts combined with malnutrition hunger of their taxxon hosts made a gestalt of very unpleasant death via being eaten alive. Sure taxxons cannibalize but under normal circumstances most have the manners to kill their prey before they start eating them.

The pursuers are adults, at least three of them. Sssirin is not. They have longer legs. Sssirin was in better health. Their tongues lashed at Sssirin’s back, snatching off a cake or two, and also tried to grab their feet to trip them up. Ha! Sssirin took advantage of the verticality of the trees to aid in dodging in such a manner that would make their hork-bajir teachers proud. They could not shake the taxxon-Controllers but they could not catch them.

But the point wasn’t to lose the pursuers.

After a few miles of chase the first pursuer fell into a pitfall trap. With the innate reflexes of their stolen bodies, the other yeerks were able to avoid falling into the same trap but that did not stop the second one from falling into the second pit. The slowest taxxon-Controller had caught on to the game and avoided the third one. Sssirin descended from the trees confidant that they were faster than the yeerk and that the yeerk was now wary of the young taxxon leading them into a trap.

But that was ok. The tribe only made the three traps. Resource limitations and all. There was always the possibility that Sssirin’s tasty decoy would have attracted more chasers than that. 

 _RUN. RUN. RUN. RU--scent marker!_ Sssirin took a hard left, momentum skidding their body diagonally for a bit as they turned. They closed their spiracles and dove into the marked bolt hole. Muscles burning and adult taxxon teeth nipping at their spinnerets, Sssirin’s throat and belly pulsed desperate for a breath that they dared not take until they burst out of the tunnel and into the air from their speed and landing softly into a safety net of vines. Popping open their spiracles they pumped vigorously to reoxygenate their tissues. Sssirin descended to the ground drunkenly, uncoordinated from the traces of chloroform vapor stuck to their shell.

The last taxxon-Controller was much worse off, not even making it all the way out of the tunnel. Knocked unconscious by the noxious chemical that would take days to actually kill if it/they were left there to rot. After a few moments to let their head clear, Ssirin let out a series of booming hoots as loud as they could manage to call out to their hork-bajir allies.

The hardest thing to do was get the chloroformed taxxon-Controller into the empty pit trap. It/their shell was very thin, their flesh bloated and delicate, and hork-bajir have many sharp pointy bits. Sssirin ended up having to make silk mittens and knee covers for Jara Hamee and Aad Wanlo so that they could safely hop the taxxon-Controller back to the pit. Watching a pair of hork-bajir in mittens counting out loud to hop in unison is probably one of the most surreal images that Sssirin would ever see. Not the least part being the ginger baby hops that the two have to do to avoid rupturing the adult taxxon’s body from sheer velocity.

The pit traps were effectively, simple rounded wedges of glass, ‘car’ windows welded together and smoothed and then greased with liquid plant fats. Taxxon toes could not grip to the slick surface. The shape of it preventing their prisoners from getting leverage with enough legs to force their way out. After a day of rest, all of the prisoners were taken to the rocky narrow valley: three taxxon-Controllers, two hork-bajir-Controllers, and five human-Controllers. Sssirin dug holes to replant the pits and was charged with caring for the taxxon-Controllers after the yeerks refused to release their hosts and receive mercy. Grath Sha helped them hunt and keep the taxxon and human prisoners properly fed.

After a week only two of the freed humans decided to stay and join the hork-bajir’s hive, the others preferring to be amongst their own kind. The new hork-bajir didn’t give it a second thought and started integrating themselves into the hierarchy as soon as Kit Naab cut open their internal skeletons and pulled the yeerks off of their brains. The freed taxxons put it to a vote as was the taxxon way.

“Are you all determined that you all will not stay?” Sssirin asked with an inquiring curl of their third left tentacle. “This hive has abundant resources and good leadership.”

The taxxon with the call-name, Ssserrr, clapped their uppermost pair of pinchers together dismissively. It swallowed the hunk of bear flesh and internal skeleton it had bitten off of the feast pile before saying, “Does not matter. Many rebellions are better than one.”

Sssaloo, said entirely in clawsign as they attempted to swallow an entire elk haunch and leg in one piece, “No offense intended, small one, to you or the aliens. But laying too many eggs in one chamber has historically been a bad idea.”

“This one does predict a close friendship between our hive and your’s,” Hhhisis finished as they used their claws to rub mashed berries into the feathers of some small birds to change their flavor. Hhhisis offered a bird carcass to the younger taxxon.

Sssirin inverted their eyes into a smile and accepted the offering, “To the freedom of all peoples, then.”

“To freedom!” The others cheered. The hork-bajir having their own celebratory feast joined in with, _“Free or Dead!”_


	7. Two bros in a tree sitting six feet apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A snippet of Dak and Jagil's friendship from Jagil Hullan's perspective.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light again. Still light.

Jagil Hullan did not doubt that the monster was waiting for them to come out. There was only one hole into or out of the wulla dead stand and that was the lightning wound nearly a stoola length above them. The musty decaying heartwood hid their smell and without being able to see them the monster would lose interest. 

His tail pushed aside wood dirt to curl around his body. Bugs and creeping things scattered. Breathe deep, in and out, slowly Jagil worked to calm his nerves. How long would they have to stay here?

Jagil felt Dak Hamee shift to stand, causing a new wave of woodlice to crawl into them both and felt a renewed sense of anger towards Dak. Dak Hamee  _ the seer _ . Dak Hamee  _ who was special _ . Dal Hamee who would one day show everyone something  _ New _ ...provided he lived that long. Jagil Hullan did not hate Dak Hamee. Normally he enjoyed Dak Hamee’s weirdness and goofy companionship. In fact, Jagil was Dak Hamee’s only friend, not for lack of trying on Dak’s part. But it was times like this that proved why Dak Hamee had only one friend.

“Dak Hamee hears nothing,” Dak Hamee said watching the entrance with his full attention and beak pointed skyward. Jagil could see Dak’s ears flared in the dim light. “Maybe we--” 

Jagil shushed Dak with his foot. His patience was worn out for today with all of the near-death experiences. “No. We wait. Not hear leave.”

Dak mumbled a question around the toes clamping his beak shut. Jagil knew his friend well enough to interpret it. “Yes, stay twice trouble. Get rooted by mothers? Probably. Get rooted better than get dead.”

He let go of Dak Hamee’s face. They were quiet for long enough that the sliver of light moved up the wall two lengths.

“Jagil Hullan is mad.”

Jagil sighed, “Jagil Hullan does not like being eaten.”

“Dak Hamee fine alone, if Jagil Hullan scared.”

Jagil snorted and rolled his eyes, “Dak Hamee alone? Dak Hamee dead fast. Fast fast. Jagil Hullan just want Dak Hamee listen maybe when Jagil Hullan say ’no! Bad! Danger!’.”

“Dak Hamee… will try. Dak Hamee sorry, not think about Jagil Hullan’s feelings. Bad friend. Sorry.”

“Forgiven. Dak Hamee not bad, just dumb.”

Dak blew cucumbers at Jagil’s smug face and tossed him a strip of ringwood and they ate in less tense silence. The ringwood was mealy and riddled with woodlice, but that was expected given that the tree was rotting. Jagil suddenly imagined both he and Dak too bloated by the extra protein to fit through the lightning scar above and started giggling. At Dak’s head tilt, Jagil mimed being puffed up with gas and gestured up at the thin crack of light. Dak snorted and started laughing as well. 

The light from the crack migrated further up the shaft and changed from yellow to a hard to see brown on the brown wood as day turned to dusk. At long last, they heard, or felt rather, the vibrations of something large jump off of the dead stand and distantly impact a different tree. Finally, they could leave.

The pair bolted for the tribe’s home tree and did not stop until they touched down on the main platform. The sky was the deep purple of night and the paper lanterns were already lit. And waiting for them was Dak’s mother, Zed Hamee, and Jagil’s parents, Janu Yorick and Zaba Hullan. They were not happy. They were even less happy when the pair told them that they’d been playing close to the mist and got chased and trapped by a monster. Jagil’s father Janu was even doing that thing with his eye that Jagil also did when stressed. No, there was no victory today.

They did, in fact, get rooted. Rooted and condemned to babysitting the younger kids who were in that size that were too big for their parents to keep carrying them around but not big enough to be trusted to wander alone. For a whole week even.

Joy.

But eight days later they were free to do as they wished. Jagil just hoped that Dak would keep his word and start listening to him about weird dangerous stuff. Hopes that were slashed when a weird egg fell from Mother Sky and Dak just had to get a better look at it.

Call him a coward but Jagil Hullan had a bad feeling about what came next.


End file.
